Liegender Stier, 1913

Commentary»I’m looking for a rich and clear style in which at least a part of what we modern painters have to say can be completely integrated. And that would be perhaps a feeling for the organic rhythm of things, a pantheistic empathy for the quivering and flow of nature’s blood. I see no better means to ›animalize art‹ than animal pictures which is why I turn to them.« With these words from 1910, Franz Marc explained his taking up of the theme of animals, unique in classical modernism. In doing so, it was not a human regard of animals which interested him: »Is there any good or even artistic reason to paint a deer as it appears to our retina?« Instead Marc sought to take the point of view of the animal that is to approach the question of »how nature is reflected in the eyes of an animal«. In the final analysis, Franz Marc’s art was based on the romantic ideal of restoring an alleged loss of unity between man and nature. Flora and fauna are of one nature, as thus the ›Reclining Bull‹ also appears to be inseparable from its surroundings.

»I’m looking for a rich and clear style in which at least a part of what we modern painters have to say can be completely integrated. And that would be perhaps a feeling for the organic rhythm of things, a pantheistic empathy for the quivering and flow of nature’s blood. I see no better means to ›animalize art‹ than animal pictures which is why I turn to them.« With these words from 1910, Franz Marc explained his taking up of the theme of animals, unique in classical modernism. In doing so, it was not a human regard of animals which interested him: »Is there any good or even artistic reason to paint a deer as it appears to our retina?« Instead Marc sought to take the point of view of the animal that is to approach the question of »how nature is reflected in the eyes of an animal«. In the final analysis, Franz Marc’s art was based on the romantic ideal of restoring an alleged loss of unity between man and nature. Flora and fauna are of one nature, as thus the ›Reclining Bull‹ also appears to be inseparable from its surroundings.